You can’t use standard sweeteners, so what about natural sweeteners? Will monk fruit break a fast?
As long as you don’t add milk or sugar to your coffee/tea, then they are fine to drink during a fast.
In fact, they may provide a nice little break from your typical water-drinking habits. Of course, some people are not all that enamored with the bitter taste of these drinks.
Fast Fact: Monk fruit will not break a fast. Monk fruit has no calories. It has no carbs. It is just pure sweetness.
What Is Monk Fruit?
Monk Fruit certainly isn’t the most appealing of fruits. It is a rather dull, brown fruit. Certainly not eye-catching among a wave of other colorful fruits!
The Monk Fruit is cultivated in China. It is said to be 150x sweeter than sugar.
It is 100% natural, and it is no wonder people see it as a great sweetener when on a fast. In fact, there are actually quite a few benefits here.
Does Monk Fruit Break a Fast?
Monk fruit will not break a fast. Monk fruit has no calories. It has no carbs. It is just pure sweetness.
Monk Fruit will not create an insulin response. This is assuming that you are fasting. If you are not fasting, then it is slightly different (according to one study)
Since you are likely already fasting, then you will know what the insulin response is. The insulin response occurs when your pancreas is told that it needs to release insulin (a growth hormone).
The job of the insulin is to move blood sugar out of the blood and store it for energy.
If no new blood sugar is entering the blood (because you are not consuming calories), then the insulin response is not being triggered.
When you are fasting, you are essentially switching off the insulin response. When the body is not producing insulin, it becomes much better at burning off fat.
When it is producing insulin, it starts to store fat. This makes it harder for you to lose weight. This is why intermittent fasting works.
No insulin response means that your body becomes so much better at burning off all of that stored energy, and so much worse at storing excess energy for later use.
Because Monk Fruit does not have calories, it does not create that insulin response. This means that your fast can continue.
It means that you can use Monk Fruit as a sweetener during your fasting sessions. In fact, it is one of a few different sweeteners that you can use.
However, we recommend that you stick to Monk Fruit as it is particularly easy to pick up.
When Monk Fruit May Not Be Ideal
Do bear in mind that we are talking about using Monk Fruit purely for fasting purposes here. Nothing else.
Some people suffer from seriously low blood sugar when fasting, and this can be incredibly dangerous.
If you are looking to raise your blood sugar (which will break your fast), then using Monk Fruit is not going to be ideal. As we said, it is not going to increase your blood sugar levels at all.
Final Thoughts
Monk Fruit has no calories. This means that it will not break any fasting that you are doing.
This means that you can easily use Monk Fruit as a sweetener for any drinks that you may be consuming when you are fasting. It helps to spice them up a little bit.
Do bear in mind that if you are suffering from extremely low blood sugar while you are fasting, the Monk Fruit is not going to increase your blood sugar levels. You will need to use a sucrose-based product for that.
